by Focus
© 1999 Focus, all rights reserved
Our house was inside the corner formed when Road 30 met Avenue 13. Road 30 stopped there, but Avenue 13 went east the quarter mile to my grandparents' house, and west out of sight. On the other side of the roads was Cottonwood Creek, which came from the northeast, ran parallel to Avenue 13 across from our house, then turned, crossed Avenue 13, and headed southwest.
Avenue 13 dipped down for the creek, and there was a flat cement slab for the water to run across. On the upstream side of the slab, someone had piled a ridge of hardpan, forming a dam, which gave us (and the Lilles family, who lived on the other side) a nice pool for swimming.
Water ran through the crevices in the hardpan ridge, and rushed across the road (at a depth of a foot or so), then down a short, wide falls to get back to the natural creek bed. As a kid, one of my favorite chores was to collect the mail, because our mailbox was on the other side of the creek, in front of Lilles' house. I'd get on my bike, and speed down the slope and into the water! It would splash above my knees, which really felt good in hot weather. I'd labor up the hill on the west bank, put the mail into my basket, and zoom through the water on the way home.
There were other things we could do where the creek crossed the road. It was a great place to catch minnows. It was fun just to wade. And if a person were brave and skillful, she could catch a crayfish there, at the base of the dam. If we wanted to cross the creek without getting our feet wet, we could walk along the hardpan ridge, jumping across the places where water flowed.
Few cars came across the creek there, mostly just my Grandparents, my folks, and a few farmhands. But occasionally lovers would drive down Avenue 13 past where it turned to dirt, to have a private place to make out. There was a warning sign, "Dip", but somehow that did not prepare strangers adequately for the sight of 30 yards of water rushing across the road. Once in a while we'd hear the squeal of brakes, and look over to see a car backing up the hill, and going back the way it had come - there was a bridge on Avenue 12.
One night we heard the squeal of brakes, followed by a loud crash. The entire family jumped up and rushed outside. At the bottom of the dip we saw a car which had swerved frantically, out of control, and halfway over the hardpan. The doors of the vehicle had burst open, and the windshield had broken out. The driver was sprawling half out of the car. Dad ran down the hill, and into the water. He pulled the driver to his feet and toward land. Dad was afraid the car might explode. Mom yelled at me to phone for help, so I ran back into the house and dialed the emergency number.
The driver collapsed in a heap when Dad got him to land, a safe distance away from the car. He was drunk, soaked, and in shock. He had a cut on his forehead; blood was running down the side of his face and matting his light brown hair. "My friends!" he moaned. "Where are my friends? Where are Ted, Sue, and Mabel?"
Mom ran to check. No one was in the car now. No one was on the hard pan. The logical conclusion was that Ted, Sue and Mabel must have been thrown into the swimming hole. Mom helped the driver up the hill to our house. Dad, Joe Lilles, and the Lilles boys dove into the dark water to try to find the passengers before it was too late, before they drowned.
At the house, Mom found some flashlights, and sent me down the hill to deliver them to my father. She got a blanket to wrap the driver in, washed off his wound, and bandaged it. He sat huddled in our kitchen chair, dripping all over the kitchen floor, sobbing and moaning about Ted, Sue, and Mabel. Mom started a pot of coffee, and gave him a cup.
The sheriff and a deputy arrived, and the sheriff took charge of the search for the missing passengers. He called for backup, and set his men to searching the downstream side of the accident scene. He was the one who declared that it was too late to find survivors, and had the men stop diving into the water. He inquired about a boat, sent for some equipment, and got the Lilles boys started dragging the swimhole from their rowboat. He called for the tow truck. He came up to our house, tracked mud into the kitchen, drank some coffee, and interrogated the driver. They'd been parked out in the country, drinking beer, and making out, the driver said, and were on their way back to town when he drove into the river. The sheriff wrote down the full names and the addresses of Ted, Sue, and Mabel.
Down on the water, the boys in the rowboat caught something. Johnny and Little Joe Lilles turned pale as they hauled it up. But it was only an old boot. They tossed it to shore, and went on dragging the pond.
The deputies came up, huddled in our blankets, dripped on our floor, drank Mom's hot coffee, and went back to search some more. Dad came back to the house, shivering and dripping. He and Big Joe had been walking barefoot through the tules, which were thick and in water too shallow for the boat. They had found no bodies. Dad grabbed a cup of coffee, and went to take a hot shower and change to something dry. The deputies came back to get more coffee and wrap themselves in our blankets again.
Finally the sheriff declared that it was time to give up for the night. He sent a deputy to Ted's, Sue's, and Mabel's homes, to notify the next of kin that Ted, Sue, and Mabel were missing and presumed dead. The tow truck pulled the wrecked car away. The Lilles boys carried their rowboat up the bank. Mom put my little sister to bed, and made me change into my pajamas. The sheriff sat down at our kitchen table to go over the events once again with the driver.
Then the deputy radioed the sheriff. "I went to Ted's house," he reported, "and Ted answered the door."
It turned out that the driver had already delivered all of his passengers to their homes before having the accident. The haze of alcohol and the shock of the accident had driven that fact out of his mind.